


The Fox and the Hound

by Spripes



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: #Ellie is older, #Fireflies, #Foreshadowing is Fun, #Forget what you played in Left Behind, #Lots of surprises, #Riley never dies, #Set in Boston, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-07-28 07:01:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20059933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spripes/pseuds/Spripes
Summary: The Fox and the Hound explores a narrative in which Ellie and Riley leave the mall unscathed.Ties are cut in the arcade and Riley presumably leaves Boston with the Fireflies later the next day.The series begins with Ellie, three or four years since that night, still in the quarantine zone.





	1. What Else Was There?

**Author's Note:**

> I do not have a beta for any of my work, so if there are severe grammar mistakes or misspellings let me know!

The early morning shot through the city in a motley of rays, twirling about the dusty atmosphere with a gradient of humid infused haze.  
It entered through the window, sullied and mottled with dirt. On the ground, the shine, cut sharply by a pair of tawny curtains bound to one side, boasted an interesting performance of brilliance as it danced between the webs sewing the metal bars, outside, together. The tiny droplets of dew trickled down the pane with shadows mirroring their actions on an old carpet that was so pressed with age it almost appeared as if it wasn’t. 

According to those who’ve been assigned first shift, this quiet serenity of a morning never lasts. 

A hazel eye rolls open, squints at the summer glazed room, and the next, pressed against a pillow, is soon to follow. She listens to the droning of the clock across from her as it strikes quarter-till-six. She could probably throw the thing well across the courtyard. 

She bends upright, contorting herself into an arc, a probable first step in getting up, and sets her blurry sight on the alarm's red flashing.  
She lifts herself up, rising on stiff shoulders, and tosses her legs over the bottom bunk. Fingers cusping the back of an aching neck, she stretches over, slaps whatever label-worn button will make it shut up. 

She combs a hand through an untidied, mess of rusty hair. The wispy layers that frame her face are pushed behind her ears, and in one fluid motion, the gesture is completed with a stretch. 

Making her way to the sill, she presses a palm against the roily glass. She peers out, squints at the roaming clouds in the skyline before she figures it’s time to change into uniform. She let a sigh flow from between lips, bounces tinselly eyes across the buildings for a few seconds before turning to open her drawer. 

She collects her uniform, dusts at it gently with rosen fingertips, and dresses it to its correct place. 

Changing unbothered, she soon finishes and collects a pair of dark blue, almost black, spit-shined boots from underneath her bunk. She sits to tie them, peers up at the top bunk to which a vacancy is still held, and currently exists only to store a mixture of clothing and boxes of things she’d acquired. 

This reminds her, turning sixteen was a short-lived milestone. What she expected was change. In scenery, in people, in role, but anticipations are never guaranteed.

The military’s dorms were already overcrowded with last season’s alums. She chose to remain in the same room of the boarding school for a little while longer. With no current talk about recruiting new citizens, an influx of orphans needing rooms was unlikely. While she could simply rent a room with her soldier’s allotment, most of the apartments and rooming houses were deeper into the city, meaning a few more blocks from the military base, and further than her current whereabouts. 

When she finishes dressing, she stands less than proud in her FEDRA uniform. Baggy cargos and a button-down shirt, both navy blue, tucked as fast as they could be into a thick blackish utility belt. Rolling her sleeves up to her elbows, she examines herself in a streaky mirror that’s chipping away with age. She finicks at various bits of her dress she thinks she could be reprimanded for. 

The outfit makes her look rangy. -She wonders if it does while cinching her belt just at her waist. With sufficient military rations, compared to the average citizen, one might wonder why. But walking along a street strewn with a collection of beggars and outcasts often made her reconsider what she really needed in order to get by. 

She returns to her bedside, and from underneath, retrieves an old, stiffened-with-age service duffel. Flipping the leather strap over her shoulder, she takes two strides to the door, stops for one last glance. 

She creases her brows, tries to intimidate the reflection. 

_Oh, Jesus, Ellie.___


	2. It Can't Be Any Worse Out There, Can It?

Cuts of coppery hair fall out of a loose ponytail and along her cheeks. She tilts her head down to check the door as it closes just beyond her toes. 

Ellie turns to the hallway outside, barren and dimmed before the sun met the window. It was always sombre this time in the morning. Lights flicker as she passes, its eeriness a reminder to check if she still had her flashlight. The smell of old moisture clings to every modicum of air, no doubt the root being the stippling of mildew painted across the ceilings and walls like canvas. It makes her snivel, sometimes sneeze, and she wipes her sleeve across her nose. 

A large door stands just beyond her at the end of the hall. -Mosaic glass framed of oak shimmer in the faint light. Reaching at the latch of the door, she pulls upwards and leans into it, steps into the landing just before the first flight.

She passes an old cobwebbed chair sitting between two large windows reduced to what was now a wistful reminder of a certain inevitability that came to everyone she seemed to know. She was fond of that nightguard. 

It was before his time as sentry Ellie routinely accompanied an escape into midnight. Touring the barred regions of the city and what scenery or repose it had to offer, she found his placement, at first, inconvenient and threatened to make efforts to sneak away more difficult. 

It came as a relief that he was unmistakably the wrong man for the job. With a preoccupancy to share anecdotes of his duration many years prior to several that were enamored by such, those that _ did _ slip away could slip out elsewhere while he was preoccupied in a distraction. She was also one that was always enchanted by the history, anybody’s really. She listened to a few of his stories, appreciated his authenticity and lavishing in his own reminiscence. 

After he died, the single prosperity to come from the situation was that their floor was no longer undereye, it being kept that way still, allowing them to pass through the stairway she stood at unseen once again. She held the melancholia she felt within, sympathy feeling like a debility among peers. 

She marches passed it now, the tall, encompassing walls stretch up to the ceiling carrying the beats of her lorn steps and echoing it around. An arm trails behind her while pacing down, hand wrapping a dark-stained rail as it churrs behind with infirmity. 

Stepping off, she reaches a flat division between the two flights of steps, the next posed around a curve, waiting to veer into the foyer.

There she stops with her head bent back, standing before a slew of fliers covering high onto the painted block walls of the landing.

Subdued colors on curling, brown-edged papers accounted for the majority of the fliers that had endured strewing the walls for so long. But on the furthest wall, that which sloped down and proceeded into the lobby, Ellie found herself most watchful of. 

She rivets over the chaotic assortment of red-capped posters before her, their presence capture’ attentions with commanding text of “wanted”. Her eyes skim over the many promulgated faces and denouncements of the rebellious group, the Fireflies. She gazes for what had the look of anything newfangled. 

Although attentive, if the occasion arose where she did find an addition pinned amongst the caste of others, Ellie wouldn’t elate to the scene.  
She had an insurmountable curiosity of them that convoluted her activities as a soldier. Ties from her past, perhaps, gave her contrition enough to be preoccupied and concern herself with their well-being and survival. 

Becoming an instrument to FEDRA was no doubt her own act of survival. Having been placed in their boarding school at an early age, she possessed the proficiency and aptitude of a good soldier.  
There was once a time she pursued association with Fireflies, advocated for herself to be apart of whatever revolution they protested for. Nonetheless, she was fortuitously denied, now having no choice other than to coalesce with soldiers who craved the hunt of them like wild dogs.  
While heavily persecuted and disparaged amongst soldiers, Ellie never felt a risk and was comfortable in knowing nobody was aware of her past contact with Fireflies.  
She blinks, lowers her head and turns towards the lobby. Satisfied with the fact that the military had no new concern of any, she gripped her leather strap below the shoulder and slips down.  
Contrast to some derelict aspects of the building, the lower level was more refined. A polished floor greeted the front entrance, lights overhung, doled a rippled reflection in the slight canals of the stone.

Across the space she could hear a clattering of pots and the stifled exchanges of cafeteria workers. There was a joyous relief that nothing yet was made or smelled, she didn’t need the distraction to rumble through her stomach.

She presses open one of the front doors, a course of wind flows by, giving her the first breath of city air. Ellie moves out from under the shadow of a flag clapping overhead, towards the stoop, scanning the yard for the bustle of a spent old shift. 

Leaning soldiers clutching cigarettes turn their heads, smoke spills from out their teeth. She returns the glance back, moves on with little thought.

She exchanges attention from the two, on towards the front gate, rucks brows at a humvee stationed there. 

A soldier is sitting out the hatch on top, leans awkwardly against the side, pulling at his chin strap to speak with one guard in the tower.  
They make eye contact before she can slide past. After a collection of laughter breaks between them, one props a head out the window of the tower, shouts something to her back.

"Hey, mornings got’a mess to clean up out there!” 

Ellie sprung around with alarm, assuming he’s shouting to her.

“Yeah, whole bunch of infected got right up against that west-end wall.” 

Before Ellie could inquire for more the monotonous recording sounded through the speakers. 

“Morning shift starts in five minutes. All soldiers must report for duty at six sharp.” 

Ellie watches him turn away, shift a rifle around in the positioning. 

“All soldiers reporting late for duty will face penalty.” 

She wheels back around, scoffs. She wonders if anyone takes those recordings seriously.  
She sends a hand down to dig in the pocket of her bag, pulls her walkman and earbuds, tries to plug them in before the recording has the chance to repeat. She hits play as soon as they’re in, the intro beginning, acquitting and intensifying an alertness from inside. 

_ “Color me your color baby, color me your car_  
Color me your color darling, I know who you are  
Come up off your color chart, I know where you’re comin’ from” 

The recording reissues again, soon followed by one hell of a high-pitch signal calling for soldiers to begin receding for shift change.  
__  
“Call me on the line,  
Call me, call me any, anytime” 

The hummer spins by, shaking the ground with a mechanic roar from an engine no verse could shroud.  
Ambling, she watches the vehicle turn out from the shadow looming by a large building into corner-light and out of her sight. Her head dips down, watches beneath at the cracks in fractured street. Flowering weeds stretch out for life through blacktop. She tries to enjoy the remainder of the walk, the tape, before count.  
//

Ellie’s shoulders rub against the ragged brick as she leans in restless company. She can almost drown out the heavy chattering with the earset. 

They line outside the base under a covered stretch, wait for the sergeant to begin the call out. She stares ahead, arms folded, looks towards the graveled lot where armored vehicles rest. Peaking between clouds, the cumulation of deep royal metal on the fleet catch the argent sol’s shot of radiance, shine it back towards itself. Most muddied and strewn with bullets from bouts of combat, one could discern the resilience of the military by these displays of sufferance. 

Ellie could never forget the days spent scrubbing the trucks as a young recruit. Just having been returned from firefights, they were laved of blood and various other matter from the sides. She couldn’t help but imagine the violence of the battle. The moribund screams unheard beneath heavy fire, she could hear the shots ring in her ears.

“Ellie!”

She jars, rending her from the daze she’d been put into. Ellie looks up to an exuberant, honey-eyed girl with hands resting on her hips. She pulls her earbuds by the cord, lets her regard cut a quip. 

“Night guards got all the fun! There were infected at the wall!” 

“What?” She sneers, doubtful. She rubs at her eyes to try and wake herself up. “Infected never get close to the walls.” 

Roved scouts are positioned out past the confines of the quarantine often. Their purpose, Ellie knows, is to lure and extirpate threats of any kind far before they reach the border’s walls. 

“Hey, it happens sometimes Ellie.” head tilted, she bants with a dimpled smile. 

Ellie straightens her back along the wall. Her brows join closer in a debated look, “Well, did the outpost say anything? Did a few get away?”

“Don’t know, but they haven’t come back yet. Could’ve been a lot of infected, they’re probably just finishing up.” 

“Yeah, probably.” Ellie turns, looking off to the lot again. She’s too tired from waiting to give it anymore thought. 

The girl joins beside, facing her and resting an elbow against the slabs, “I hope they don’t make us clean it up.” 

Ellie eyes spread with a beam “Are you kidding me?” shutting down the hope in thought, “You lift I’ll pull.”

They both straighten as the line around them begins to reposition, soldiers arrange themselves more aligned when the sergeant finally makes his entrance. He’s broad with the added breadth of a flak jacket. He also has the look of someone who has their head some other place, scratching at his head, unfocused, which explains the delay. He licks a finger, flips open his list. His hat casts a hardened shadow, veiling the upper portion of his face. 

“We know the drill. I call the name, you walk in and get your gear on, wait for me to give your directions for today.” 

The girl dips closer in to Ellie, ready to whisper, “Guess we’ll find out in a second.” Ellie flashes a peek back, a placated smile to not feel coarse when she’s trying to pay attention. 

He begins listing the names of their regimen in a grizzly, baritone voice fitting the likes of a sergeant perfectly. Reaching theirs, “Williams,” and “Hartley,”, they report, walk in to join the room of collected strapping helmets and kevlar on. 

They’ve started equipping, the remainder streaming in, tailed by the officer ready to begin briefing. Their attentions linger onto him. 

“Our business today is to address some shit-smelling infected that are going to rot more if they’re not destroyed. Drag them all nice and neat together and light em’ up.”  
Before he can continue, he’s met with enough disapproval to set him over the edge. Whichever sigh or stifled bane he’d heard had relinquished any disassociation sensed moments ago and heaved him into an eruption.

“Yeah? I don’t want to hear it! We’ve got a unit that we’re unable to locate and last had contact with out in the west outskirts. When you’re done scraping runner’ ass up off the ground here, maybe I’ll give myself a treat by watching your faces when I choose to send the lot of you out there to clean up whatever else mess there is.”  
His vein drums on the sides of his neck, droplets of sweat already accumulating across a flushed face. “Finish gearing and get loaded. Oh, and Pearson?” 

The room goes mute, the soldier turning upright, wide-eyed and timid.

“If you forget your fucking helmet again, I’ll personally see to it that you are nothing more than a latrine queen for the rest of your life.” 

They all wince as the slam of a clipboard rings through the room, the man’s way of dismissing himself. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, Sergeant Briggs” One soldier facetiously adds, snickering subsiding as they resume equipping the arsenal’s accessories and weapons to themselves, not forgetting by any means gloves, and brave off towards the unit’s transport waiting outside the pavilion. 

Loading up, they find seats in the cramped vehicle, legs resting against one another. Rifle stocks are rested against the deck, reverberating loudly with a multitude of other rattling as it pulls away.  
The base’s gates open and they are waved on by guards out into the city. They start on towards their destination, West Wall. 

Ellie peels back the canvas covering the window, the passing scenery being preferable to sitting in dark. 

She stares across the forgotten collapse of storefronts and broken windows, the shiny morning dew glimmering through the stickiness.  
They drive alongside the parting streets of downtown, the openings unveiling a skyscraper afar, broken at the torso and collapsed against the other in a disparaging scene.  
Burning flares from the day lime against recent rainwater, creating mirrors against close-quartered rooftops. They pass brush and shrubs, like flames, engulfing the city more as they closen to its outermost parts. 

Roots buckle out of pavement and vines knot buildings and powerlines together, revealing that the reclamation of environment had come upon even the most urban of land.

One could hardly compare this new world to its old predecessor, both in examples of habitat and culture. Negating threats and living among them brought humanity a stones throw back in time, more carnal feelings harboring animalistic tendencies conflicted with desperate attempts to regain a civilization lost to itself.  
//

It takes several minutes to reach the manned West gate. Brakes cry as they slow to a stop, alerting the group to their arrival. Ellie looks up to see the tower-guard stop pacing and aim sights into the unquarantined expanse outside.

To venture outside still felt daunting, even by this world’s standards. Even if the quarantine was by no means a safe haven, everyone still clutched to a security they felt it provided.  
The engine dulled down enough to hear a soldier direct the caravan out. 

The gate reels open, garish shrilling as it pulls up to let them pass under, they veer from the pavement onto the pressed dirt road along the wall.

Just beyond them, what lies between the quarantined fraction and the desolated remains of uptown Boston, was a ravine cut through the subsided debris skirting below ground level. Covered in limy soft grass and moss, this expanse of marsh led to the Eastern tunnel and was only accessibly by foot. 

The overpass still stood, bellowing deep and shifting on occasion in harmony with the risen towers exceeding high above. 

Ellie sits eyeing the range, feels a light tap on her shoulder.

“You need help with that?” 

She motions to a bit of strap that dangled off her helmet, untucked. She reaches up herself to fasten it, interrupted by a clash of hands quicker to the job. 

“Thanks,” she swallows, watches as the girl peaks over her to the opening in the window. 

“Wow, that shits pretty far. I’ve never even been on this side of the wall.”

Ellie yields some space for her to stargaze, glances down at a sandish braid running along her nape.

“Well, it can’t be any worse out there, can it?” She bluffs, hoping to conjure some valor for the other.

Her company leans back in her seat. Ellie watches the contemplation idle on her face.

“Infected are out there.”  
Ellie shushes herself, crashing on the dread. 

It’s at this point she remembers she’s apprized when it comes to the inner workings of the quarantine. She realizes it’s not just citizens that delude themselves of a sanctuary without fault. She doesn’t have the heart to reveal that infected also exist on the inside, even on their hand of the city. She could testify to it herself but won’t. At least when the day is done, confidence can still be returned. 

They approach drop-off swiftly and can smell the stricken corpses outside. The truck stops, stalling for a moment before loud knocks hit the outside. They know the que, pull their masks up just as the rear of the truck is lifted. 

“You lift, I pull, right?” the girl laughs, standing up, a nervousness still purveying this newfound bravery. 

“That works,” she muses, joining her upright. 

They hop out the back, not eager to start but ready to get it over with. Ellie hoped she wouldn’t throw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a lot longer than anticipated. Didn't beta/edit this very hard, sorry for errors.

**Author's Note:**

> Going to try and pace myself through these chapters! I always write too little or too much! We're going to find a happy middle ground, just stay tuned!


End file.
